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Re: [microsound] being 'political' in non-verbal music

i want to preface this: john saylor brought up cage, not me! ;)

there was a period in Cage's life where he wrote his compositions in accordance with his own worldview. the structures and forms he used supported his personal feelings of societal control and healthy living... an example would be the removal of any 'conductor' from a large ensemble piece, or the way instruments in the Number Pieces were meant to play as if they were solo parts, but that still coexist in harmony with all the other parts as a unified (and interpenetrating) whole.

that said, Cage's political views could only REALLY be deciphered if you knew the musicology behind it. if you knew that Cage was interested in utopian anarchy and the philosophy of thoreau and bucky fuller, you might be able to hear that in these pieces. i doubt Cage wanted that result, however. he only wrote music as it occurred to him as something he does, which would naturally coincide with his own intersecting philosophical ideas.

that is how i think 'political music without words' happens, because i agree, music as sound is nothing more than music as sound. anything beyond that is due to an interpretation by a human mind, which contextualizes it, and the more context the more meaning it may gain... or lose. there is no inherent meaning in sound or music, it is only present in the mind of the listener.

there was a big discussion on some list i was on way back that pitted the idea of Masculine and Feminine music, that there was a discernible *audible* difference. my own opinion is that music, as a language, is ill equipped to communicate specific things. the semiotics and syntax of its language is different than word-based ones, which have more cognitive importance simply because they are widely used and recognizable.

unfortunately, words are borne from things which are not them, they are fake and viral; music is itself categorically.

On Jun 22, 2005, at 7:31 AM, john saylor wrote:

hi

your post made some questions come to my mind.

On 6/22/05, Bill Ashline <ashline@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

If you hear that group of sounds devoid of the message
inherent in it, they're only sounds.


if you read that group of words devoid of the message inherent in
them, they're only words.
if you view that group of colors and shapes devoid of the message
inherent in them, they're only colors and shapes.

what does this phrase mean:
'devoid of the message inherent in them'
?

what is the inherent message in sounds?
have you been reading john cage? zen texts?



Paraphrasing Lyotard:  a cave dweller inscribes a figure on the wall
inside a cave.  Is it art?  Is it language?  It is neither.  The
distinction will come later.


hmm ...

why does it matter if it's art or language? what is the difference
between art and language? why is that distinction important?



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